Professional Training, Supervision & Consultation

From Dr. Jochem

I have had a commitment to professional training activities throughout my career as a clinical psychologist. I developed and directed an accredited clinical psychology internship program and have supported the professional development of many mental health professionals through the provision of individual & group supervision and case consultation. Additionally, I have been invited to provide clinical training on a regional, state-wide and national basis. I have been retained as a consultant and trainer by many school districts, agencies, municipalities and professional associations.

Professional training and supervision have become a major part of my clinical psychology practice. My primary areas of interest and expertise with respect to training and consultation fall into the following categories of practice: community-based response to traumatic events, adolescent suicide prevention, school-based threat assessment, general case consultation/clinical supervision and intervention with special populations including post-traumatic stress and, also, management of self-injury.

Adolescent Suicide Prevention Training

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents. When you consider that most adolescents who die by suicide have signs and symptoms of a psychiatric illness (most commonly depression, often accompanied by substance abuse) and, further, that they often have signaled their suicidal risk to someone in their lives, it seems clear that educational efforts to raise awareness of the warning signs of suicide are warranted.

Certain educational programs to prevent adolescent suicide—often called gatekeeper training programs—have been implemented around the country, with particular emphasis upon schools. The idea behind gatekeeper training is simple: if every adult in the school setting—teachers, clerical staff, support staff and administrators—were trained to spot the warning signs of suicide among their students and encouraged to refer at-risk kids for additional help, perhaps we can make a real difference in reducing youth suicide rates.

In collaboration with the Illinois Suicide Prevention Coalition and the Mental Health Association in Illinois, I developed a gatekeeper training program for use in middle schools and high schools to improve awareness among teachers and staff of the risk factors and warning signs of adolescent suicide. The training is designed as a one-hour long didactic presentation to improve awareness among school faculty of the warning signs of adolescent suicide and, importantly, steps to take with at-risk students. My program has been presented to schools and school districts throughout the northern Chicago metro area. The program is available for download at the website for the Lake County Coroner's Office.

School-Based Threat Assessment Practice

Just as it is now routine for schools to operate their own internal crisis response teams to help students and faculty cope with a tragic event, there is a clear trend towards the development of school-based threat assessment teams, where trained school personnel evaluate and manage potentially threatening circumstances. The skills necessary to develop and operate a school based threat assessment team can be acquired quickly by trained staff and it is within the scope of every school or school district to have an effective threat assessment team which practices in a fashion consistent with emerging standards of care.

I have designed a curriculum of consultation and training which can quickly develop and deploy a threat assessment team capable of servicing a single school or an entire school district. Following an initial consultation with school leadership, I help to recruit and train a school's threat assessment team and also provide inservice training for the entire faculty to familiarize staff with threat assessment procedures. The content of the training is draws upon an approach to school-based threat assessment generally known as "the Virginia model", based upon the work of Dr. Dewey Cornell of the University of Virginia. Another model developed by the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services is also utilized in my training.

Included in the training package is consultation to assist with policy and procedure development, strategies for working with the parent community and steps to promote norms within the school wherein students help to maintain a safe environment.

The overall goal of the training is to equip the school or school district with the capabilities to identify, evaluate and manage the estimated seventy percent of threats which are less serious in nature, making referrals for specialized evaluations only for the less frequently-encountered circumstances where there is a threat judged to be substantive in nature Training is conducted on-site at the school, may be accomplished in a single day.

Responding to Traumatic Events in The School or Community

When tragedy strikes an organization—a school, business or other organization—the waves of shock and grief ripple through everyone affected by the event. In most instances the nature of the tragedy involves the unexpected, sudden loss of a friend or co-worker. The normal operation of the organization—a school's daily schedule or the daily routine in a business or company—is disrupted as those impacted struggle to come to terms with sad or frightening news. With advance planning and implementation of a post-traumatic intervention plan, the organization can support the healing process and move towards healthy recovery after the tragedy.

Most schools, businesses and other organizations now recognize the need to develop a plan for coping with future organizational stressors such as traumatic events. I have provided this sort of consultation with many schools, agencies, businesses and communities who wish to be prepared for the management of traumatic life events. Organizational consultation for the development of a traumatic response plan may include the following:

• Pre-event consultation to develop a traumatic response plan, customized to the specific needs of the organization
• Traumatic response team development
• Staff training and education
• Policy & procedure development
• Liaison with other appropriate community-based agencies and services

Typically, the training format utilized is a full-day workshop which covers the basic skills necessary to design & implement a post-traumatic intervention plan in a school, other organization or within the community. My training manual, The Provision of Post-Traumatic Consultation in Schools, Businesses and Other Organizations, serves as the syllabus for this training workshop and also is a useful reference for the design and implementation of post-traumatic response plans.

Other Areas of Interest in Professional Training

I also provides professional training in the following areas of practice:

• Diagnostic clinical interviewing
• Post-traumatic cognitive behavioral psychotherapy
• Management of self-injury among adolescents
• Motivational interviewing and stages of change
• Grief and loss in children and adolescents
• Adolescent development
• Management of compassion fatigue among clinicians and providers of services
• School-based violence prevention

Clinical Consultation and Supervision

I am frequently retained by schools and other organizations to provide clinical consultation. I work with schools to tailor a consultation approach to best fit the needs and interests of their staff.

Feel free to contact me with any questions about these professional training services. Contact information may be found on the Contact page of this website.